the ruffian--" Hist!--let no one know that my daughter's husband came
here with a felon's purpose. Sit down--down I say; it is for my house's
honour that you should be safe." And suddenly placing both hands on
Losely's broad shoulder, he forced him into a seat. During these few
hurried words, the strokes at the door and the shouts without had been
continued, and the door shook on its yielding hinges.

"The key--the key!" whispered Darrell.

But the bravo was stupefied by the suddenness with which his rage had
been cowed, his design baffled, his position changed from the man
dictating laws and threatening life, to the man protected by his intended
victim. And he was so slow in even comprehending the meaning of
Darrell's order, that Darrell had scarcely snatched the keys less from
his hand than from the pouch to which he at last mechanically pointed,
when the door was burst open, and Lionel Haughton, Alban Morley, and the
Colonel's servant were in the room. Not one of them, at the first
glance, perceived the inmates of the chamber, who were at the right of
their entrance, by the angle of the wall and in shadow. But out came
Darrell's calm voice:

"Alban! Lionel!--welcome always; but what brings you hither at such an
hour, with such clamour? Armed too!"

The three men stood petrified. There sate, peaceably enough, a large
dark form, its hands on its knees, its head bent down, so that the
features were not, distinguishable; and over the chair in which this
bending figure was thus confusedly gathered up leant Guy Darrell, with
quiet ease--no trace of fear nor of past danger in his face, which,
though very pale, was serene, with a slight smile on the firm lips.